I will have a similar policy if and when I happen to breed. As Jowibou alludes to, this means I will have to take the initiative in seeking high quality social interactions for my children myself. It may be a better option for my children but it certainly will not be easier!
I know several people who were unschooled. Their parents didn’t particularly ‘take the initiative’ in the sense of organizing ‘play-dates’ or other such things; but the parents did make the children a part of their lives, so the children interacted with ordinary people practically every day.
Well as far as I can tell, they’re all some of the most brilliant people I’ve met, and not socially stunted or anything. And seeing the lack of scars from schooling on these folks really makes them obvious on everyone else.
Keep in mind selection bias. The pool of people who would unschool their children is systematically different from the general population. Aspects of child-rearing unrelated to schooling (at least conventional schooling) and/or genetics probably played a role in determining the adult personality of their children.
Indeed. The eldest of them hypothesizes that it wasn’t so much unschooling that caused the good effects, but more likely other factors, most relevantly “the parents having bothered to make any decision regarding their children’s schooling”, which has been shown to matter in other contexts.
I will have a similar policy if and when I happen to breed. As Jowibou alludes to, this means I will have to take the initiative in seeking high quality social interactions for my children myself. It may be a better option for my children but it certainly will not be easier!
(Care to share your thoughts on the subject?)
I know several people who were unschooled. Their parents didn’t particularly ‘take the initiative’ in the sense of organizing ‘play-dates’ or other such things; but the parents did make the children a part of their lives, so the children interacted with ordinary people practically every day.
In your judgement how well did that work for them?
Well as far as I can tell, they’re all some of the most brilliant people I’ve met, and not socially stunted or anything. And seeing the lack of scars from schooling on these folks really makes them obvious on everyone else.
Could you expand on the “scars from schooling”?
Keep in mind selection bias. The pool of people who would unschool their children is systematically different from the general population. Aspects of child-rearing unrelated to schooling (at least conventional schooling) and/or genetics probably played a role in determining the adult personality of their children.
Indeed. The eldest of them hypothesizes that it wasn’t so much unschooling that caused the good effects, but more likely other factors, most relevantly “the parents having bothered to make any decision regarding their children’s schooling”, which has been shown to matter in other contexts.